hostage crisis reportedly rises to twenty five while it is suggested that france's mali intervention which provoked the terrorist attack is actually a resource grabbing operation. hundreds of friends and supporters of internet. gathered for his memorial with his family maintaining the computer prodigy was driven to suicide by prosecutors and a looming trial against him. to dissolve parliament in the face of protests over corruption allegations in the capital talks to the man behind the anti-government uproar.

and recapping the week's top stories and bringing you today's top news this is r t live from moscow glad to have you with us. the algerian military has reportedly taken five islamic terrorists alive in the aftermath of the gas facility hostage siege with the clear up operation is still ongoing the civilian death toll is expected to rise as more bodies are discovered several foreign civilians were among the dozens killed when algerian forces stormed the site taken by militants in revenge for the french intervention in neighboring mali and there are increasing claims that paris invaded out of self interest as boyko reports. we don't always but it's terrorism was about to overwhelm this friendly country the terrorism that threatens not just all of west africa but also the entire world.

he's vowed that france won't stop its intervention in mali until islamic extremism in the country is stamped out the military has announced that it's going to be sending more troops and potential set to exceed two hundred thousand the stated goal to help the government in bamako drive out his limits to insurgents before the francoise lands talk of freedom and democracy for six a the french government you see as end of the military offensive could be linked to other elements u.a.d. of these fronts. many people say huge cost is a huge factor in its economy and it's something that not only mali but specifically niger and other neighboring parts where the tourist people reside. sits on top of almost every single light bulb in france runs on electricity generated by nuclear power power relies on a steady flow of pure rainy i'm so you don't have to be

a nuclear physicist to figure out that to keep all these bright lights on the french government depends on a steady flow of the precious natural resource but money says mr i learned it's not it's about power or money so that you know secured this is nothing to do with any political issue from a different time if we are defending a government or business interests which government which business. some have their suspicions nationally supported the french energy company. is about to finish the second largest ukrainian mining plant in the world next to bali you know every year the cars do exactly machinery and it's going to be very cheap there's a third world very cheap. france is playing a very dangerous game and after the french military offensive reportedly sparked a deadly hostage crisis in algeria lightbox it beginning to go off in the heads of

ordinary citizens who put out almost nobody i'm for intervention if it is to fight terrorism but it's got to be for good reasons i know that it's for raw materials that are in mali oil diamonds and gold renders the ground it is north of moped they don't think about democracy well we have made paris a huge target and france a target for terrorism. at least but with the prospect of an untapped natural resources needed to keep fronts in limited political analysts say that francois promised to stop playing big projects and former colonies isn't going to be fulfilled anytime soon plenty boy can see paris. and for reaction and analysis now from international relations professor mark all and. mr ahmed thank you very much for being with us now is almost in mali had

warned in advance that they would retaliate for the french intervention didn't anyone anticipate an attack on a western facility coal run by europeans and other foreigners. it's extraordinary the complacency about this the british ministry of defense apparently shut down its north african desk in two thousand and ten and then of course in two thousand and eleven britain and france lead the intervention in libya and we're getting a kind of and i'm going to this problem as a kind of backwash from that intervention because you have are not going to look through what's going to happen if you overthrow gadhafi but you don't actually put anything stable in its place quite the contrary chaos spreads and similarly in mali the argument is that france is intervening to stop chaos but the risk must be from . interventions before that the french intervention will actually tend to send ripples of disorder further around the region. now you mentioned ripples of disorder and this backwash if you will what security measures are now being taken

to counter further attacks like this. well i think the the surprising thing is that some fairly basic security measures which are just really numbers of guards would not apply to that bay are the same places here on all sides what seems to be the problem is that the insofar as the mali events well the spark for this nobody seems to think that perhaps organized groups can come from somewhere other than mali it seems they came across the nearby libyan border libya is are so central to all this problem because all the a lot of weapons that's been produced by the collapse of that are but also a complete failure to establish any kind of real state you have essentially walls operating in different parts of libya and you have across much of this hour a situation where people have problems with very little civic sense so bribery and corruption order grants is commonplace and so the whole notion that

a brief quick shot short short sharp shock by western intervention somehow or other will restore the existence of the modern state will restore libyan state. i think terribly naive not imperative criminally responsible short sharp shock is something that we've been told about before but haven't heard or haven't seen in practice in fact the u.s. and british special forces now reportedly hunting for the al qaeda linked organizer of the terror attack how difficult could it be to track them down when it took american ten years to find osama bin laden you know the thing is it could be very difficult he may be caught tomorrow but the real issue is why do these kinds of groups exist and i think the basic problem is that much of this vast region we do and states were we government really shows any interest of the world even people we have a lot of natural sources that are very profitable when exported in so far as anybody in these countries gets to share the profits it's a small number of people in the government and they essentially deposit those

cohorts in the west and you therefore have a huge potential social base of discontent in some ways what is surprising about this region is not that there are terrorist groups because there are so few radicalized people but so many people have not been radicalized even the month in which they live even more corruption and if you are the flagrant contempt for corporation so many of. well if you look at the population some of the algerian terrorists reportedly came from libya where western powers helped usher in the revolution which brought islamists to power what other ramifications can we expect besides terror attacks like this. well i think if you like luke a key ramification here has been the very strong suspicion of the old german government towards the western governments offers of help after all the algerian sort colonel gadhafi was embraced by tony blair by sarkozy and then britain and france moved to overthrow him and indeed to facilitate his lynching i think we in effect military regime in algiers is very afraid that president along may be trying

to be supportable from is he supportable because this brings the influence of parts greater into a juror and then algeria may have an arab spring star salute toted or motored by the western states who still seem to be committed across the board to this project of democratization of the arab world which we see also going on in syria and of course like it or not the regime in algeria will say this is not in our interests many algerians may say looking at the chaos in algeria libya this is not something we wish to share with the resistors thoughts of sorry. we unfortunately have run out of time but i appreciate thoughts on the subject live from oxford that was international relations of professor mark almond thank you for being with us thank you. hundreds of people gathered in new york to pay their respects to aaron swartz online freedom activist who hanged himself last week the twenty six year old computer prodigies suicide came ahead of his trial for cyber crimes which could

have resulted in him spending decades behind bars this week federal prosecutors dropped the charges against swartz his family and friends still blame the government for his death and associate reports of the crime downloading millions of academic papers in the public domain from a paid subscription database and the believe that they should be free. to essentially rocking out too many books in the library the punishment facing thirty years behind bars and a million dollar fine if you're looking at a crime that essentially amounts to download a p.d.f. to a hard drive. no person was harmed. there was no financial benefit murder received less punishment the result twenty six year old web wizard aaron swartz takes his own life the idea that he was facing decades in jail is is just disgusting absolutely appalling and and now we've lost

a tremendously valuable and talented human being while the plea bargain deal for only several months behind bars was reportedly a possible outcome the internet freedom crusader refused to be seen as a felon his family and supporters blame the prosecution's aggressive attempts to put swartz behind bars for his suicide this man a young man and his family were literally terrorized by the prosecutors and the judicial discretion that let this case go forward and not stop while authorities dubbed him a criminal supporter say he was a robin hood in the fight for freedom of information aaron swartz was a prodigy at fourteen he helped write the are assessed specific ation and online syndication system that allows users to consolidate. feeds from numerous blog sites automatically instead of having to check each website individually the program is now part of the common vocabulary of the internet and is used on a daily basis for publishing news stories from all over the world critics say u.s.

officials wanted aaron sent down to set an example he was going up against policy and he knew it well but he thought he would be in the clear in the law because he was only spreading public domain documents instead swartz's case has made an example of how seriously the internet is regulated in the us the laws under which he was indicted did back to one thousand nine hundred eighty four many believe they're long outdated the prison sentences needed to be relaxed especially for supposed crimes like this where there was no economic motive where there was no way for him to profit even if they said even if he did all the things that he did so they said new legislation dubbed aram's law has been proposed in the u.s. congress it's still unclear whether there will be any real change but what is clear is that it once again took a tragedy to galvanize national debate and stasia churkin our party new york and still to come in the program at dwindling support as it is really prepares for the

polls on tuesday we look into why the country's prime minister benjamin netanyahu is losing many of his former supporters. technology innovation all the developments around russia. the future covered. three. three. three. three. three. three broke. free.

from moscow this is back with us now pakistan's government and a muslim cleric. agreed on friday to bring an end to the mass protests in islamabad tens of thousands of his supporters ended a sit in against widespread corruption and unemployment. convinced authorities to dissolve parliament in march now voting should take place within ninety days of the government also agreed to discussions on the electoral reforms but all countries

demanded that the army help set up an interim administration. another sign of a deepening political crisis is the government's face off with the supreme court it's ordered to arrest of the prime minister over corruption allegations was dismissed. journalist and a former pakistan air force officer says the change of power could be. people likening it to the square and so many other things but my personal feeling is that in all those uprisings there was not one single leader around home people could rally but over here they have in the shape of a llama the whole cadre but there have been actually two or three different theories about the background of this man some say that because of his canadian nationality and because of his longer stay in the west he may have been motivated as well as funded by the west there is another theory that he may be a stooge of the military the fact is that whoever has launched this particular

person has done his homework because the man has captured the spirit and imagination of a people. the feeling that there are down drawn in elected and driven against of all because of the bad governance because of the peril of situation because of lack of energy lack of food and lack of jobs people are joining him in flocks and even those who are double minded are now trying to make sure that it matters if history has to change of this country. resent our government slogans driven by the discontent over corruption and a flawed electoral system included it calls for a revolution and he spoke exclusively to the protest leader who told us exactly what he means. when i see evolution we should keep in your mind in egypt in tunis in libya and all these countries. needed a dictatorship for years and years for a long time. and that people stood up against that indeed and there was it when

eric to rule of shan shah the people stood up against that our dystonic is bit different there is no one air room neither monadic elul nor needed a dictatorship here is electoral authority did twenty guineas electoral dictatorship true democracy does not exist in this society neither in political field nor in social field nor in economic field not democracy so this is a lot less and less total chaos and anarchy in this country government is totally dysfunctional. saw that this is the single nation a single country in all muslim world and in a nuclear capability any of the same situation continues that would be a very big disaster if we could come to the level of collapse so our this martin movement is anti corruption to educate our society from corruption and this is need of the whole muslim world. and old third world and developing muslim countries have

to get to good of corruption and corrupt leaders. israel will elect its parliament in two days time and prime minister binyamin netanyahu is predicted to come out on top yet many israelis today don't think he's being radical enough policy reports why many of netanyahu is right wing allies are changing their minds. he's the surprise success story of israel's election campaign and one twin millionaire who says a palestinian state would be suicide for israel naftali bennett used to work for prime minister netanyahu but now he's working at taking supporters away from him like this man who used to be a diehard supporter of netanyahu so he could party until these elections rolled around the likud is. a bus full of right wing members of knesset with a left wing person driving the bus as far as being i mean.

even though i am opposed to a state. i would say most members of the likud obviously a minute is for it the irony is that while the world sees netanyahu as a right wing leader at home he's losing face among supporters for not being enough this is part of the right wing campaign he's up against there are some things we all know will never happen the sopranos will never return for another season. growing our pro and a peace agreement with the palestinians will not happen promises like this have been a jewish home party in food position it's poised to take more than twelve percent of parliamentary seats analysts say netanyahu while still expected to serve another term is running scared he's up his rhetoric i say in the most clear of terms the western wall is not occupied territory i don't care what the un says we will build

in jerusalem because it's our right not one yahoos we could list has grown even more right wing with radicals like this woman high up in the pecking order. but the league would retain a party is a party with values the state of israel is a state of the jews whose eternal capital is jerusalem. but what will be the implications of such rhetoric after the elections many israelis are asking themselves. about the day after will netanyahu become more rightwing and risk drawing israel into conflicts with its neighbors or will he back down and risk losing face among his supporters speaker is hoping for the latter that netanyahu will listen to world opinion and reach a compromise with the palestinians he knows all too well what the current cycle of violence can bring speakers daughter was killed in a suicide bombing seventeen years ago. that we don't have unfortunately in the center and the left

a leader who is significantly charismatic to lead this country and give its people hope the left is also divided but i do think netanyahu will find a way to compromise because of world pressure but that compromise won't come easy enough to the bennett solution to the israeli palestinian conflict is to annex most of the west bank while allowing palestinians limited self rule in the wrist and while that might not seem a possible idea to most of the international community it's exactly what his constituency wants to hear a fact natanya who is acutely aware of policy r.t. tel aviv. of course r.t. will be closely following the election on the twenty second of january giving you in-depth coverage. how will tension with to run develop will settle to expand just isolate can there be peace with jazz or what's next in relations with america will listen you know who survived his snap election on january twenty second. israel decides. barack obama has and now officially begun his second

presidential term having just taken the oath of office at the white house on monday he is expected to paint the prospects for the next four years and pledge to deliver on some of the promises he has so far failed to keep from all of this i am now joined by scott horton from new york a contributing editor for harper's magazine thank you very much for being with us. great to be with you now barack obama took office when the u.s. economy was shrinking at five percent a year and then presided over hundreds of thousands of job losses what is he now done to improve the lives of americans in the past four years well i think there has been a gradual recovery from the economic slump the catastrophic one the curtain the fourth quarter of two thousand and eight but the recovery has been one of the slowest recoveries in history. but i think the thing he's got going for him frankly that we saw very clearly in the last elections is that even under adverse economic

circumstances when the voters in this country are presented with a choice between the republican party. barack obama they have no difficulty picking him. well the inauguration happens with lots of distress around the country anti-gun control rallies across the u.s. and that's happening in the background how much is obama swimming against the tide here and home might this fish reaction from gun owners affect his second term well the this i think is going to be one of the signature challenges for his second to ministration and in fact one thing we've got to know this is if we look at the last fifty sixty years. america has come presidents who had a second term since the error of the f.d.r. have largely not really fair well second terms of generally they've lacked orientation they lacked focus some of just dissolved the way that george w. bush second administration was the biggest catastrophe of all but but reagan's

second term wasn't a great success either clinton's was one of the great friction barack obama's launching his second term making gun control a major issue and this is an area where for fifteen years now the gun industry in the n.r.a. have felt that the sight of the upper hand they've been a vital force in controlling and shaping campaigns using their money and it seems a surprising that he would do this by certainly if we look at the polls right now and we look at the statements of political pundits the initial signs are good for him of the question is as the horror and shock from the massacre in newtown fades whether he'll be able to retain this sort of momentum but i'd say right now it looks good now moving on to some of the international relations despite the talk of resurgence and compromises relations with russia remain tense more sanctions are

being slapped on iran and there's a speculation of possible intervention in syria now what's your assessment on whether obama is making the world a safer place or even more dangerous. well i think this is one of the areas where we may see a subtle change in the obama administration certainly the first term was marked more by consistency with the broad foreign power of its in and. of george w. bush then by difference from and now if we look at the new team he's bringing in now there definitely are some signs of shift the most important such sign is the appointment of charcoal to be the new secretary of defense chuck hagel is i mean this is not mince words about this he's an hour right in the me of the neo cons in washington he'd love nothing more than to take them on the debate them his nomination is already opening the door for

a debate about the iraq war and whether it was a big mistake for the country something that he go believes and i think by and large obama believes. so i think we see a bit of a shift and maybe the laying of a foundation for a reduction in military spending in fact i think that maybe the reason to tap a republican just as clinton did in his second term on the thinking a republican can make cuts in the defense budget that a democrat could not make and i think this also has to translate to a softer position with respect to russia and the effort to see more accommodation less willingness to intervene in new conflicts like syria and mali i think what we'll see is the united states taking the view that some of its close allies may have more interest than the u.s. turkey in the case of syria or france in the case of mali and that may support

those allies without itself taking a leading position and unfortunately we've run out of time but i really appreciate your thoughts on harper's magazine contributing editor scott horton thanks very much very interesting to talk to you on the subjects. thank you all right now catching the train took a bizarre twist in rural russia this week a man who survived after falling off of carriage barely dressed for a night in the freezing siberian forest in the winter earlier artie's tom barton told me how the man managed to make it out of the woods alive. i would picture the scene we've got forty two year old valarie male coffee a lorry driver in this train clickety clack ing its way through the forests in the a more region in russia's far east at night they decide to go for a cigarette but nothing special so he goes to the vestibule at the end of the carriage smokes his cigarette and then as he stays went to open the door to go back to his carriage except it was the wrong door and he falls out the back of the train

so he rapidly realizes that he is not just running to catch up with the train but for his very life we managed to talk to him earlier he was a little bit embarrassed about the whole thing when i fell out i only had parents slippers and t. shirt i ran for seven kilometers i didn't curse minute happened i just saw the train was gone so i came quickly to my senses and started running so that i didn't freeze i ran on the railway track for about twenty or thirty minutes when i go to the nearest station their eyes popped out after they saw a man with almost no clothes on women there quickly gave me tea and reported what just happened i didn't tell this to anybody my wife found out about the incident only after journalists called her i would imagine that the phone call he had with his wife after she had found help not from him but from journalists was possibly a little bit strained luckily he's ok no injuries no hypothermia he's back at work there will be an investigation into perhaps the whether the train guard had

forgotten to lock the back door of the train which as we can see was a probably quite a big oversight if it turns out that that was what happened it's also possibly one factor that made him run a bit faster was that we've recently reported on in the far east in siberia there's been quite a lot of problems with packs of ravenous wolves being there so i imagine if we had that in mind if you knew about that possibly something to spur him on a bit faster. and coming up in a few minutes the final installment of an investigation into america's most bloodthirsty gangs coming up at r.t. .